Disclaimer: Same as before.
The battle over Coruscant
Coruscant. The capitol planet of the Republic, located in the middle of the galaxy. The whole place of the planet is covered by one huge city, its buildings towering many kilometers high. It is the home of the Republic Senate, the place of the main Jedi Temple and the home of the chancellor. Coruscant represents all the achievements of the Republic during its thousand years long existence. And now Coruscant, or at least its orbit was a battlefield in another battle of the Clone Wars.
However this battle was extraordinary, as the winner of this battle would get a hold of chancellor Palpatine, the most influential politician in the known universe and the head of the Republic. Both the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems have committed most of their battleships, turning the skies above Coruscant into a chaotic dimension of death and destruction. Kilometer long battleships fired at each other, while tiny fighter squadrons assaulted the shield generators, engines or the gun emplacements on the battleships, dodging the laser bolts and the attacks of the enemy fighters. The hour had already lasted for two hours when two additional star fighters appeared out from hyperspace. Unnoticed, they flew past one of the Republic battleships.
Of course no one paid too much attention to them, as there were thousands of other fighters and these two probably wouldn't make any difference in the outcome of the battle. Or would they? These fighters were not just any kind of fighter, but the Jedi Starfighters. The Jedi had used them many times in the past and they had been heavily modified during the years of the war. The once triangular shape had been shortened. Powerful laser cannons were mounted in the front, their cockpits were round. Also the wings were now equipped with panels that could be opened or closed, strengthening the shields around them. The Jedi Starfighters were regarded as the best fighters in the galaxy for their maneuverability and firepower. But the fighter in itself wasn't as deadly as the pilots who used to fly with them.
The Jedi, who with their strong connection to the Force could pilot the fighter through heavy crossfire without a scratch, exploited the true potential of the star fighter. And the two Jedi who sat in these fighters were among the most famous Jedi in history. Jedi Master Robin Kenobi and his friend and ex-padawan Raven Skywalker rushed fearlessly into the ensuing battle. Robin's fighter was painted red, while Raven piloted the yellow one.
They flew past the battleship, just a few meters away from its surface. As they reached the side of the ship they turned the fighters around and flew down into the battle. The sight was unbelievable. The giant ships were continuously firing at each other, the red laser bolts belonged to the ships of the Confederacy, the blue lines were fired from the Republic ships. Millions of shards flew away every time one of the bolts hit a ship, fighters were chasing each other while the anti-fighter cannons tried to shoot them down, creating clouds of smoke during the explosions. But Raven and Robin flew into this chaos and seemed to dodge every stray shot easily. They flew near Republic and Confederacy ships, near their firing batteries. Each shot was so powerful, that even a single touch of it would've instantly destroyed their fighters, breaking them into atoms within a second. But these Jedi were good pilots. Especially Raven, who had the reputation of the best, fastest, deadliest and bravest pilot in the galaxy. She was the best. And she knew it. They finally got out of the crossfire and flew in a bit calmer space side by side.
"Oh man, I knew I should've stayed home!" Cyborg complained, sitting in a small space reserved for mechanics on fighters. His job was to repair minor damages to the fighters systems and helping the pilot. Cyborg's full name was Cy2-D2, but everyone called him just Cyborg or Cy. Raven just glanced out of her cockpit and saw the poor guy's terrified look on his face. He wasn't a Jedi, he wasn't trained to handle situations like this. A red dot appeared on Raven's radar.
"Lock onto them Cyborg! Robin, general Grievous's ship is directly ahead of us." she said with a monotonous voice, while looking at the ship represented by the dot on the radar. It was the command ship of the enemy fleet, far greater than the usual battle cruisers or corvettes. Its surface was full of droid star fighters, which now launched towards the approaching Jedi fighters. There were at least 50 of the droids, against the two Jedi spacecrafts.
"I see them. Oh, this is going to be easy." Robin answered sarcastically, and then he switched the frequency of the commlink to speak to the clone pilots nearby.
"Gold wing do you copy?" he asked quickly.
"I copy red leader." an emotionless voice replied. It was the typical voice of the clones, created from Jango Fett's DNA. Robin knew them quite well, as he was the one who discovered the cloning facility on Kamino and he even fought the 'father' of these clones. He knew they had the same qualities as their predecessor, making them the most effective fighting force in the galaxy.
"Mark my position and form your squad up behind me!" Robin ordered.
"We're on your tail general Kenobi. Set wings into attack position!" the clone pilot said and a group of ten fighters joined the Jedi. The wings of the clone star fighters opened, making them look like mosquitoes. The Jedi star fighters also raised the panels on the sides of the wings.
"This is where the fun begins." Raven stated with a large grin on her face. Although the Jedi were trained to resist strong emotions from their childhood, Raven was a bit … complicated case. She had joined the Jedi order when she was 9 years old, which meant that she was too old for the training. She already had had emotional ties to her mother, Arella, which were dangerous. Most of the emotions were dangerous for the Jedi, as the misuse of the Force lead to the dark side. Fear, anger, hatred, jealousy, these all lead to the dark side and for this reason Raven was also required to accept the simple life of the Jedi. But she had a secret, that none of the Jedi knew. She was in love. She has fallen in love with a certain senator long ago on his home planet of Naboo. His name was Beast Boy. Their love was a forbidden love, as she has made a promise to the Jedi Order, which required her to let go of any relationships. Beast Boy was a senator and his duties were to represent Naboo in the Galactic Senate. So their secret marriage wasn't really good for their public lives. So they kept it secret from everyone, hoping that one day they will be free to leave their duties behind and live together. But in the present Raven had to concentrate on the task at hand: save the chancellor, who was her close friend, something like a mentor.
"Let them pass between us!" Robin gave the order, fearing that Raven might break off from the group to shoot down some more enemy fighters. She could be reckless at times, not thinking over her actions before actually acting. But Raven kept the formation and soon the two groups of fighters met. They flew past each other and some of them exploded as they opened fire at each other. The clones and the Jedi continued towards the command ship and soon the droids were chasing them. The droids started to shoot down the clone star fighters who couldn't evade their constant attacks.
"They're all over me! I can't get them off my…" sounded from the commlink as one of the fighters was destroyed.
"I'm gonna go help them out!" Raven said. She couldn't bear that people were dying, while she did nothing.
"No! No, they're doing their job so we can do ours!" Robin said. Raven sighed, but both of them continued in their original direction. One of the droid star fighters suddenly turned around flew towards them. It opened its wings and launched four rockets at the approaching Jedi.
"Missiles! Pull up!" Raven said. The two Jedi fighters moved a bit aside and the rockets flew by them.
"They overshot us" Robin said happily, thinking that the danger was over. However suddenly Raven's cold voice was heard.
"They're coming around!"
The rockets now trailed the fighters, two after each one of the fighters. The missiles were set to follow the exhausts of the star fighters. The Jedi flew in different directions and tried to lose the rockets.
"Alright R4… no, no no, nothing too fancy!" Robin told his mechanic, while flying fast by a battleship's bridge. The little mechanic wanted to do some acrobatic move to lose the rockets, but because of the wrong timing it turned into nothing more then a little shaking of the star fighter, which apparently wasn't enough for the rockets to lose their target.
Raven on the other hand was doing a lot better then his former Master.
"Surge all power units Cyborg! Stand by to reverse thrusters!" she gave the orders quickly and Cy did everything she asked. After this Raven increased the speed of the fighter and started spinning around. The missiles, still continuing to follow the exhausts began spinning as well, and shortly after that collided with each other, creating a small explosion.
"We got them Cyborg." Raven said with a hint of overconfidence in her voice. She looked out of her cockpit. The mechanic seemed to be in a very bad condition after the previous spinning.
"I think I'm gonna be sick!" Cyborg said.
Meanwhile Robin was still having problems.
"Flying is for droids!" he said angrily as the two missiles were still following him. He had never liked piloting machines, unlike Raven, who almost seemed to merge into her star fighter in each battle. The rockets suddenly managed to get ahead of Robin's fighter and exploded. Small balls were released them and some of them caught the fighter's surface.
"Raven, I'm hit!" he shouted into his communicator.
"I see them. Buzz droids!" Raven stated. Robin looked at the small balls hanging on to his fighters. The balls opened and three red robotic eyes looked at him. The small droids started to crawl on his fighter. Drills and saws appeared from their little bodies and started to cut the hull of the star fighter.
"R4 be careful, they have a…" Robin tried to warn his mechanic robot, but as he looked in its direction he saw as two of the buzz droids sawed and tore off the head of the poor astromech droid.
"Oh dear." Robin said, as the metal head flew back into the space.
"They're shutting down all the controls!" Robin said as he was losing his control over the fighter. The little droids were now cutting the circuitry within the star fighter.
"Move to the right so I can get a clear shot at them." Raven said.
"No! The mission's more important! Get to the command ship and get the chancellor! I'm running out of tricks here!" Robin answered, but Raven, who was flying close behind him, opened fire. The first couple of shots actually did destroy some of the droids, but the third shot hit the wing of Robin's fighter, effectively tearing off a part of it with the panel and some droids. His fighter shook dangerously.
"IN THE NAME OF…! Hold your fire, you're not helping here!" he yelled into the microphone.
"You're right, bad idea." Raven agreed as well. In the meantime one of the droids punctured the gas tank in the front of the fighter. The gas escaped and instantly froze on Robin's cockpit, blinding him from the outside world. Which wasn't a good idea, as they approached the command ship and the enemy ships were firing at them.
"Can't see a thing, my cockpit's foggy! They're all over me! Raven…" Robin tried to speak, but his fighter shook violently. He violently. He looked out and saw Raven's fighter collided with his. She smashed one of the droids with the wing of her fighter. Even in normal condition this would've been considered a suicide, but Raven seemed to consider the impossible as something 'not too easy'.
"Move to the right." Raven said.
"Hold on Raven, you're gonna get us both killed!" Robin answered. They flew by an exploding cruiser.
"Get out of here, there's nothing more you can do!" Robin tried to convince her.
"I'm not leaving without you!" Raven said and once again ran into his friend's fighter. She smashed all the droids, except for one. The little droid jumped on her wing and moved to Cyborg's side. The droid took out a small drill and prepared to cut a hole into the fighter.
"No you don't!" Cyborg said and morphed his arm into the sonic cannon. He shot the robot, but it seemed to have no effect on it. He shot at it few more times, but nothing seemed to work.
"Cyborg, hit the droid's center eye!" Robin said. Cyborg aimed and hit the droid precisely. The eye of the droid exploded and the remaining shell drifted away into the space.
"Booyah!" Cyborg shouted happily.
"Nice." Raven said, seemingly unimpressed.
"Great, Cy!" Robin congratulated as well.
"The general's ship is dead ahead!" Raven said. They were quickly approaching the huge command ship.
"Damn, this looks bad!" Cyborg panicked as dozens of red laserbeams flew dangerously close to the fighter. The whole spacecraft was shaking.
"Well have you noticed the shields are up?" Robin suddenly yelled, as he realized that the hangar of the command ship was defended with a blue shield. Raven's eyes widened as she remembered the last obstacle. She had only seconds to act.
"Sorry." she said and with that flew over to the other side and fired at the shield generator on the command ship's hull. She hit it and it was destroyed. As soon as the shield disappeared a metal wall started to close the access to the hangar as the equipment was being sucked out into the space by the vacuum.
"Oh I have a bad feeling about this!" Robin said, as the fighter came close to the hangar. He saw the wall closing in on him. Fortunately the fighters got past the wall just in time and it closed behind them. The fighter crashed into the floor of the hangar. Robin broke his cockpit and he jumped out of it. He turned on his lightsaber in the air and when he landed he cut down three of the battle droids with its blue blade.
Raven's fighter also landed, a lot more elegantly than Robin's. She opened the cockpit and walked out of it, while Cyborg had also left his seat. Raven turned on her lightsaber as well and was approaching Robin, while deflecting the lasers shot at her.
"There they are! Get them!" the droids told each other and all of them started firing at the Jedi, but they didn't present too much of a challenge to the Force-users. Raven and Robin fought at each other's side, covering each other and Cyborg at the same time.
"Cyborg, locate the chancellor!" Robin ordered while cutting a droid in half. Cyborg went to a nearby computer panel and hacked into the system. Soon Raven and Robin stood beside him. The droids were all destroyed, their metallic remains lay on the floor in pieces.
"The chancellor's signal is coming from right there, the observation platform at the top of that spire!" Robin said as a small hologram showed the command ship's structure. Raven suddenly felt strong pain in her right hand. That was strange as the lower part of it was robotic, replaced after Terra cut it down during their encounter on Geonosis. Raven knew that she wasn't supposed to feel pain in the robotic arm, so there was only one meaning to it.
"I sense Terra's presence." she said.
"I sense a trap." Robin answered. It was quite obvious, as the chancellor was held in a place with almost no strategic importance, far from the bridge of the ship.
"Next move?" Raven asked with a small smile on her face, as she already knew the answer that had become their motto.
"Let's spring the trap!" Robin answered with a huge smile on his face.
"Alright! Let's get down to business!" Cyborg almost jumped at the promise of some action. Raven and Robin however turned towards him.
"Cyborg go back. I need you to stay with the ship!" Raven said.
"Here, take this! Wait for orders!" Robin said, throwing him a small communicator. The Jedi walked away, leaving Cyborg alone in the hangar.
"Oh man, this sucks! I really should've stayed at home!" he said sadly and sat down on the cold floor.